


tell and i’ll listen

by Isagawa



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Archive Warning is there only for potential triggers but no non-con scene actually happens, Aromantic spectrum, Asexuality, Author is really attracted to Iwaizumi and it shows, Coming Out, Consent is everything, Internalised aphobia, M/M, Queerplatonic Relationships, Sex-repulsed!Oikawa, but everything turns out alright dw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-16
Updated: 2020-11-16
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:20:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27594020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Isagawa/pseuds/Isagawa
Summary: Oikawa has never really understood the appeal of sex.
Relationships: Iwaizumi Hajime & Oikawa Tooru, Iwaizumi Hajime/Oikawa Tooru
Comments: 17
Kudos: 92





	tell and i’ll listen

**Author's Note:**

> I started this fic years ago as part of my 2017 NaNoWriMo. Found it again last night and kicked my own ass to complete it lol.
> 
> I am myself an asexual on the aro spectrum and this was _so_ cathartic to write. I hope my fellow ace/aro readers feel represented, and I hope it helps allo(sex/rom) folks understand what we can go through. I did try to be educational here lol
> 
> Regarding the TWs: internalised aphobia is definitely there. Also, the plot edges a few times towards non-con, **but it never actually happens.** I am NOT having non-con in an empowering ace fic, so tread fearlessly — but yeah, be aware of that, I wouldn’t want to trigger some of you.

The bar is small and noisy, and draws an equally small and noisy crowd: employees in suits-and-ties coming to celebrate the weekend, girls already in shorts and tank tops on the horizon of the spring holidays. Beside Tooru there’s the laughter of the girl he’s been talking to for the past half-hour; and his own voice rises across the noise, when he compliments her. She’s charming, and he’s a charmer, and they look at each other and exchange compliments in easy voices. In the course of the evening she bends over to kiss him; and it’s good-natured, pleasant, to kiss someone you’ll probably never see again. Looking for nothing else than a good time. Knowing seduction is something you can do. 

Later in the evening Tooru says _I have training tomorrow, I gotta go_ and she says _Can I walk you to the tram stop?_ They play pretend as they go, a cute little couple on a Friday night, she puts her arm around his waist and he puts his around her shoulders. By the time the tram arrives, just one minute, he smiles and puts his hand on her cheek and kisses her — and she kisses him back a hundredfold, until the kiss gets searing hot, until she presses her body against him. 

The tram stops them abruptly. As she says goodbye, she slips her number (written on the corner of a napkin) into his back pocket and slips her other hand under his shirt, on his hip, fingers electric with some sort of promise, saying: _Call me_. He breaks away from her with a start. 

He gets on the tram; he feels bad, and dirty, and full of guilt. He clenches his fists and is certain, in that instant, that he will never call her again. 

His hip burns. His hands are shaking. The mere fact that she thought he wanted more, that he might ask her to come home for the night, makes him feel nauseous. 

In his head, he can hear the same sentence over and over again: _You asked for it, didn't you?_

*  
  


Oikawa has never really understood the appeal of sex. 

He couldn't determine when he had become aware of it: others were interested, fantasized about it, dreamed about it, and he simply didn't understand the point of it. Nor did he know at what point this neutral state, this observation, had turned into a gap—a chasm, really—between him and others. Had turned to feeling different, and not in the good sense of the word. Why couldn't he find a body attractive? Why did he feel forced to lie when he was asked: _No but for real, who would you bang, Fukada Kyôko or Shibasaki Kou?_

What had gone wrong? 

Although sex remained foreign to him, Tooru _had_ understood very quickly how pleasant it was to please. Maybe it had to do with compensation — give himself the illusion that he wasn't a bit broken when it came to relationships. Maybe it was just his nature, this charming, sure of himself side (‘dramaqueen’ in the words of Iwaizumi, that boor). He liked it, the sidelong glances, the innuendoes, the appreciative smiles, the kisses — and felt even worse about never wanting more. He would run away at the slightest possibility of sex, always with that little voice that said: _you don't usually flirt to stop like that... you usually act like a normal person... aren't you ashamed to give them hope and then run away... if they think you want to have sex, it's because you've been asking for it._

He didn't know exactly what he was looking for. But that wasn't it. 

*

"Can I talk to you?"

Iwaizumi casts a half-surprised, half-blasé look at him over his cup of coffee. Even when they're alone at his place, Oikawa rarely stops in the middle of his studies to chat. He's aiming for a full sports scholarship at a major Tokyo university, and it may be two years away but records are built up over several years. Dawdling is out of the question. But his friend’s gaze, cast away from his textbooks, is anxious, fleeting. And he never is. 

"Doing it already," Iwa says, putting his notes in order. 

Oikawa is silent for several seconds, then slowly declares: "I think sex doesn't exist for me." 

Iwaizumi looks up. “What's that supposed to mean?”

Oikawa's mouth has a crease he wants to make disappear, like thumbing over a pottery not yet dry to smooth its surface. Iwa realises that his words may have been a bit harsh, and he’s about to add something when Tooru resumes.

"I mean, the... sexual dimension, as a whole, I don’t know, it’s not a part of my life at all. I don't care about sex. I mean, _no_ , it's worse, I don't want to have sex with people, anyone. Just the thought of it... And I can't find a girl sexy. I don't even really understand the term. I don't know. If you didn't talk about it, I'd forget sex is even a possibility for people. It just doesn't exist for me." 

As his tirade went on he spoke faster and faster, until he ended up almost out of breath, quiet. His eyes are dead lowered now, resolutely posed on a gouache stain at the bottom of the wall, which dates from when Hajime was five years old and still wanted to become a painter. 

Iwaizumi has rarely seen him that vulnerable. 

Oikawa resumes: "I feel like... I'm missing something, you see—”

But alas, Iwaizumi is a teenage boy. A kind, loyal, well-meaning _teenage boy_. 

“Don't worry like that,” Iwaizumi cuts in a gruff tone. “You never know, it'll probably come later, we're only in 11th grade. Maybe you just haven't found the right person yet?” 

“Yeah. Of course,” Oikawa whispers, voice toneless. 

“And even if it's not that, it doesn't matter. You have the right to... to do that, not caring about sex,” Iwa adds, a little late. 

Unfortunately for him, Tooru —nodding his head automatically, caught in his thoughts— doesn’t listen to this last sentence.

It would have changed the course of things, perhaps. 

*

He is very popular, both as a boy and a volleyball player, a real little star appearing on local TV channels. Iwaizumi (the lout!) calls him "Miss Miyagi". Girls flock to his games, and sometimes jostle each other in the corridors to see him go by. He doesn't really understand the fascination, but he won't complain. 

He's had lots of girlfriends already. 

He has known for a year or two now that he likes boys too; maybe less frequently, less uniformly, but it's a reality he doesn't want to forget for once — fighting against himself is exhausting. Only, boys don't rush to the gym doors at half-time like their female counterparts; boys don't seem to look at him that way, and there’s this thing called law of supply and demand, and Tooru adapts. Girls are simpler, and there are plenty of them. 

It's an important factor, quantity, when you know that Tooru goes from girl to girl like a bee would from flower to flower. He always wants to try again because he thinks that there will be a day when it will work, when he will stop being afraid — so he tries again, and after a few weeks the loveliness has turned into a sense of enclosure. Into an underlying but constant anxiety that the other will try something _._

(So many terrible things hide behind the vagueness of that _something._ )

Tooru says to the girl, not unkindly: "Training takes me a lot of time, and if we don't see each other regularly we're both going to end up frustrated, and things will end up getting worse... Let's stay friends, ok?" A little disappointed, sometimes with tears in her eyes, the girl —she's an Akiko, an Emi, a Kyouka— nods slowly, and he smiles at her and walks away.

(Iwaizumi, who observes him from the corner of his eye, knows that such smiles are hypocritical. Oikawa acts as if he doesn't see him.)

* 

Midori is different; for once, he really likes her. 

She has pale green eyes and smooth black hair, a very short fringe and a smile that turns the world upside down. For once, Oikawa notices her before she notices him. He's not _in love_ , he's not even sure if she likes him, but there's something about this girl that he can’t walk past. Naturally, they end up dating. 

She's extremely ambitious, and her eyes are so seething when you criticize her that you want to dig a hole in the ground and hide there, and her sharp tongue is that of one who knows her worth and doesn't want to be forgotten. She's top of the best class of senior year. One day, he tells her about Kageyama and she tells him: _When you have a problem, face it and destroy it before you have time to be afraid._

That day, he thinks that maybe he has found someone with whom it would work. 

  
  
  


The day he says _No_ , she doesn't hear.

They are at her house, it is autumn and the landscape is lined with yellow and orange and red, and it looks like the streets have caught fire; with the coming night everything is covered in ashes, and everything is reborn burning in the morning, in the weak and foggy sun. Oikawa doesn't like autumn, it's wet and cold and too cowardly to admit it — a sort of passive-aggressive version of winter that exerts itself reminding him that he entered senior year one month earlier, and _you can’t joke around anymore_. 

He wrapped a big scarf around his neck. There's no way he's going to be sick for the first few games of the season, he already hurt his knee two weeks earlier. 

He can't remember how he got there (at Midori's house, his back to the wall and her against him, she put her fingers under his top and her mouth is at the base of his neck, the scarf on the floor) but he's not okay. Not at all. His breathing is accelerating and his heartbeat is getting louder and he doesn't know what to say. They've been dating for two and a half months, and she's the first one he really likes, and he feels bad because all he can think about is _Run_. 

Midori unbuttons his shirt, and looks up and smiles at him — he’s red and panting and of course she’d think he’s okay, that he feels good, because that would be the normal reaction. Then she looks down again, she's so close that he could count all of her lashes one by one if his brain hadn't decided to stop working. The girl's mouth goes further down, it is on his chest now, and in a start he lets out a breath: "No." 

(But too low

and she doesn't hear

and she's nice and he likes her and she _likes him_ and he can do that for her, can’t he)

She unbuttons his uniform trousers next, her pale hands barely contrasting against the maroon jersey, and she said in a puckish voice: "Okay for you?"

Oikawa has no strength. He leans his head against the wall and closes his eyes, short of breath. He doesn't see her smiling; convinced that everything is fine. At this moment he has the impression of melting into ice and separating from his own body.

He is rescued by Midori, kneeling down a little too fast, and whose bent knee bangs hard against his own — his injured knee, wrapped in a bandage, and the abrupt pain feels like an electroshock. He shouts, his body suddenly bent, his hand on the painful joint — Midori withdraws, his eyes wide open, _Oh my God Tooru, I'm sorry, are you all right, I'm sorry,_ and he says between his teeth: "It's all right, it's all right", with a surge of tenderness mixed with fright. She no longer dares touch him. She gets up and says _I'm going to get some ice cubes._

He is so relieved that he has tears in his eyes, but Midori doesn't understand that either.

The next few days, when they pass each other he is hurtful without meaning to, strangely sharp, impatient. Midori is silent — at first she’s even sorry, but her eyebrows get more furrowed as the days go by, her face red with anger. She doesn't deserve this, she knows it, he knows it, and she doesn't understand. He avoids her, spends all his time in training. 

One day she corners him at school. Her hands are shaking but her eyes are sharp, proud.

“You’re avoiding me. I know how important volleyball is to you but... if it has to do with my mistake... I never wanted to deprive you of matches. I didn't do it on purpose. And if you're not able to see that or not be mad at me, I think it's best we stop here. I’m sorry.” 

Everything happens very quickly. She leaves before he has a chance to say it's his fault or explain. He stands stock still, taken by surprise; it’s the first time he's ever been dumped. 

Some time later, he runs into Kageyama again for the first time since middle school, and this event is the one that finally pulls him out of the stupor he has been dragging behind him for days. 

*

They lose their match against Karasuno. 

The final whistle blow is deafening and it takes a few seconds for it to register, on both sides. And then, even more deafening, are the cheers. The whole gym erupts in noise and Tooru is there, in the middle of the court that used to be his, in the middle of the team that is still his, in the middle of Seijoh’s own, personal, deafening silence. 

Tears are bitter things, especially when you swallow them down. 

They spend the following night as a team, at Issei’s house, getting drunk off their asses and swearing tomorrow they’ll go train to get better. The next morning everyone is hungover and they don’t go training at all, and somehow it feels right. But it still doesn’t seem real. None of it does. 

The next night, Iwaizumi rings the Oikawas’ doorbell at 7 and asks if he’s eaten already. They take the bus and go to the next town, just the two of them. What results is a different kind of silence. 

They end up in a club, only because they don’t want to go home yet and you can hear the music from the street (and the day hasn’t come Oikawa won’t be moved by Nicki Minaj). To tell the truth, Iwaizumi doesn't even really like to dance, and Oikawa doesn't have the energy. 

Two minutes in, they both realize what they craved: the noise. 

After all their Saturday spent on the court, in the silence broken only by the squealing of soles against the ground, where the absence of sound is only a reflection of the growing tension (the constant impression of being on the edge of the cliff or even falling, _when will the ball hit the ground_ ) — it is comforting, restful to find oneself in the din. Heavy basses vibrate in the stomach, in the legs, in the ground, under your feet. You touch the ground. You breathe. 

In the course of the evening, Iwaizumi kisses him. A sure but light contact, without leaning against him, a simple hand placed against his forearm; as if the ace gave him the possibility to run away, and at the same time didn't think for a second that Tooru would. 

(Iwaizumi, who has never told him about anyone, girl or boy or other, who underneath his rough-hewn front sometimes blushes for no reason like a child, his best friend, the only one who knows his secret.)

Iwaizumi who Tooru knows inside and out, his stubborn eyes, his dry muscles, who runs his thumb over Tooru’s cheek when he finally smiles. 

You touch the ground. You breathe. 

*  
  


Their relationship changes, and does not really change. 

They are at Iwaizumi's tonight, because Tooru's mom has friends over. Earlier in the evening they did their physics homework. Earlier still, they watched a match of the Japanese national team (a friendly against the Americans) that Iwa had recorded. 

Now they’re on the sofa; Iwa lying with his back against an armrest and Tooru spread out on top of him, two human rags becoming one with the sofa, a perfect symbiosis of man and furniture. 

They have been kissing for several minutes and Oikawa is starting to run out of air. 

Righting himself using one elbow, he takes a deep breath before blowing on the face below him; the short, dark brown locks barely move on the forehead of Seijoh’s ace. Yet Iwa raises his hand to put them back in place, before reaching further out and ruffling Tooru’s hair. 

"You look like a scarecrow," he says in a neutral tone (borderline vexing, in fact) and the setter, who was bending down to kiss him, decides against it and gives him a flick on the cheek instead. 

"And you're an oaf!" he complains with far too much joy in his voice.

“Does this word even exist—”

“Hm hm,” hums Oikawa, settling more comfortably on his hips. “But a ill-bred boy like y—”

He suddenly freezes and silence cuts them down like a knife. When he moved, he has— _against Hajime's thigh—_ Iwa scrambles to sit straighter and the movement confirms that was no illusion. _(Tooru’s brain is frozen, good for nothing, useless.)_ Iwa is looking at him. 

The moment stretches like a slippery slope. 

Everything happens very quickly, from the moment he tries to move away in a hurry to Iwa’s muffled exclamation — _wait a sec_ — but Iwaizumi has the reflexes of a national level striker, and his hand locks around Tooru’s wrist. The setter is at the other end of the couch, breathing heavily, his rational mind catching up on his automatic reaction. 

"I said wait," Iwaizumi repeats, the way he would talk to a frightened animal on the side of the road. Tohru sees his gaze sweep over him. The next moment, Iwa’s voice says, almost penumbing: "Tell me if you’re okay, please.”

“I didn't think you’d want— it surprised me, I'm sorry.”

“You idiot, I don't want anything at all,” Iwaizumi mutters immediately. “It was just my body. An- an automatic reaction. I wouldn’t want..." And then he repeats: "We're not going to do anything."

Tooru stares at Iwa’s neck, where he sucked a hickey down for a laugh, after they wondered which member of the team would realise first there’s something between them. His gaze catches Iwaizumi's — his hair is still a mess and his shirt is crumpled where Tooru was lying, and his eyes are a disconcerting mixture of annoyance and worry. He thinks to himself: is it really possible, that they're not going to do anything, that Iwaizumi doesn't want to either. 

“I mean— I'd probably want to if you wanted it too,” Iwaizumi replies, frowning, as if he had read his mind (as if the fact that Oikawa hasn't yet understood is a mystery to him). “But I tend to listen to what you tell me. You know, best friends and everything.”

His voice, almost exasperated at the end of the line, hits Tooru head-on — like a blow to the windpipe, or rather a Heimlich maneuver that catches his guts suddenly, the impression of a necessary evil to start breathing again.

Something unblocks. He says: 

“I, uh. Can you. Leave me alone. Five minutes, please.”

Iwaizumi nods and gets up. In doing so, he lets go of the wrist he had continued to hold tight on, a firm but never painful grip. 

Oikawa raises his wrist at eye level and looks at it for long minutes. 

  
  
  
  


“Hey.”

Iwa is at the door, looking at him, a full glass in his hand. “Water?”

Tooru lowers his hand and nods. 

“Sorry for that.”

“No problem.” Iwaizumi hands him the glass, sits on the edge of the sofa. “I have something to tell you though.”

Something twists horribly wrong in Tooru’s guts, but Iwaizumi says: “Don’t make that face. It’s not about you.”

So Tooru stops making that face. He breathes and looks at Iwaizumi, and is surprised to see his face crumpled like a piece of paper. “It’s about me, actually,” Iwa says, “I’m not in love with you.”

Tooru blinks. “Um. Okay.” It’s been a month at most, so he didn’t expect him to anyway. Even himself — he likes Iwa, he likes him a lot, but with his history there’s still something very frightening with the two words _in love_ stuck together like that. 

“No, ha, you don’t understand,” Iwa says, wrinkling his cute little nose, “I’m not and I’ll never be, I don’t even think I can fall in love, actually.” 

Oh. 

Ohhhh.

Tooru wants to say something. He wants to say it doesn’t matter, which is true and also not true. He wants to ask if it changes something. Is it okay to kiss if Iwa is not and can never be in love, okay to link pinkies in empty streets when they walk home from school, okay to think of him first when he tosses the ball during a stressful match? 

Tooru wants to be selfish, he always does. It doesn’t matter, but does it? Does it change something? Is it too much to deal with, between my stuff and your stuff?

Can we stay like that for a while longer? 

“Are you…”

_(Are you breaking up with me?)_

Iwa says, “I’m not in love with you but I love you, I hope you know that.” 

And when Tooru gapes, he laughs, and stops laughing, and scratches his neck and says: “It just. I like us as we are. I just thought I’d tell you because it’s important to me. I, I read things online and they say you can be aro and still like companionship and intimacy, and— and if it’s someone, then it was always gonna be you, you know?”

This is the weirdest night Tooru has ever lived. And there is something in his belly that feels very, very warm. 

“I’m gonna need to have you as my lockscreen, after that.”

Iwaizumi smiles. It’s beautiful and fierce and focused, the kind of smile they share before a match. “Okay then.”

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


Okay then.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> I’m an anime-only and I’m not even fully caught on the anime yet, so please don’t spoil if you comment! With that said, do comment if you feel like it <3


End file.
